


Count your blessings

by QueenOfSkaro



Category: Original Work, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Company of Thorin Oakenshield - Freeform, Crossover, Different Worlds, Gen, Mental Instability, OC, Obsessive Behavior, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Portals, it drives him crazy, the universe tries to help and talk to Camden
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 04:16:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5077456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfSkaro/pseuds/QueenOfSkaro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Symbols are powerful and you only need the right series to open a window into another world.</p><p>Follow number-obsessed Camden to his excursion through the wonders of the universe - and to my favorite fandoms.<br/>First stop : The Hobbit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, maybe this is a little weird.  
> Feel free to tell me in a comment x3

My name is Camden Attisk.  
_6 6_  
I am _1 9_ years old.  
My mother called me insane and threw me out of her house. She says she's afraid of me when I'm near, but it's not so bad. Insane is the _six_ letter word I needed to continue.  
_Three_ different shirts thrown onto my bed so I could take the _fourth_ and get dressed. _One_ minute just standing in front of the mirror in the tiny bathroom of my appartment - _1 0_ letter word - _five_ minutes brushing my teeth and _seven_ strokes through my hair until it had to look alright. No more. No less.

Three years ago I was already exhausted before leaving the house, but you can get used to everything. Stepping over every fourth step on the way down from my flat on the eight floor - no elevator, there was a graffiti containing a one, two threes and a seven and those had no place right now. The elevator was out, the numbers said so quite obviously. Everyone stepping in is insane.  
Down the street, crossing one and turning the next to the right. It's cold, so it doesn't look too weird when I jump up and down until I count to thirteen. A car drives by at top speed where I would have stood on the street if I hadn't listened to the thirteen. I cross the street and enter the coffee shop.

It's still exhausting now, sometimes, when I have a bad day or the cyphers in my head demand taxing things - there was a 239 a while back, so I ran up 239 steps of a building to accomplish it, but just as I got down again a 201 appeared and I had to go up again. I missed my bus and saw later on the news that it crashed. Not a coincidence. The numbers keep me safe and help me, so I stopped fighting against them. It's so much easier to just do as they please.  
I never find a recurring pattern, but it doesn't matter, there is always a way to satisfy them. The sixth drink on the menu is a latte, so I order two and the five from the desserts, blueberry scone, two of them as well. I turn around, one step, someone bumps into me and one of the lattes splash across the floor. Doesn't matter, I still got one. Without looking at anyone I leave the coffee shop and turn around three times, as if looking for directions. 

The funny thing is that even though my whole life completely burned to ruins after I first started to behave 'weird', I feel safer now than I ever have before. Maybe I really am insane. And everyone else thinks I am, no one wants to believe me when I say that it can't always be coincidences. My mother threw me out, I dropped out of school because I just wasn't able to concentrate on anything they tried to teach me - and they thought I 'needed help' after patting my maths teacher on the head four times - he deserved it, he did a great job - and, alright, it was probably a bit more the black board I wrote full of the last numbers I could still remember - three times over, which resulted in a mess only I could decipher, but no one wanted to believe me that it was important I did it. All my friends dumped me, my boyfriend left me and I moved into a tiny ass appartement I would never have stepped a foot into if not for the giant 4692 in my head I didn't know how to get rid of otherwise. No way was I going to climb so many steps. And still - I felt safe. Like nothing could possibly go wrong, as long as I listened and did as they said. Probably really insane.

I can't hold a job for more than a month tops. Right now I work for an accountant - only until he notice that, yes, I write an awful lot of sums on the paper, but, you know, not those you'd want me to. That doesn't mean I'm stupid or anything, because I'm not, it's just - it's awfully hard to concentrate most times when you got the urge to drink two glasses of water right before looking through the cabinet for the fourth file, look it through until you counted the letters of their name and put it back again.  
You see, often the numbers are useful. Sometimes they even save my life. And other times I just need to pee really badly. Slinking out of the room on the way to the bathroom I come to a sudden stop at the open door of my boss' office. Lying on the desk I saw seven little daggers, richly decorated, those things you only lock away in a show case to look at because they were pretty. My boss collected weapons and he obviously got a new delivery. I curse under my breath, look up and down the corridor, sprint to the desk and was out of the building before I dared to breath again, pockets full of tiny knives. I had the job for two weeks. And I still need to pee.


	2. Chapter 2

The bag lies on my bed and I'm still a little puzzled by it. Not that it just appeared magically or anything. It didn't, I packed it. It's the content I put in that puzzles me.  
The seven daggers I stole. Both blueberry scones I bought this morning - they would be old before I was allowed to eat them and I kind of mourn a little. A sleeping bag. An assortement of clothes. A large container of water. Sixteen packs of beef jerky. My medicine bag. Blister pads. A notepad with a strapped on pen. 

Why do I need them? What kind of journey would I need to go on? The questions start to rise in my mind and I let out a whimper, because questions are so much worse than numbers and I'm flooded with relief as the symbols take over and I can let myself fall and be kept safe by them. My thinking stops, my eyes focus on the wall next to my bed I always hide behind a curtain, but now I shove it to the side, get a pen from my nightstand and do as I'm told. The digits flow through me and out through the pen onto the already written on wall and it gets kind of hard even for me to read them, but it doesn't matter, because I don't have to. The wallpaper blackens from all the paint and I still continue, not knowing how long I already did. 

Symbols are powerful, you only need the right series of them and you can imprint them on the matter of the universe. And that is what I am doing.   
I can feel it pulsating, coming to life under my hands and I should be creeped out, should be afraid, but I'm not. Hastily finishing my job I stumble back, looking at the black painting consisting of _0_ s and _1_ s and _every other number it told me_.   
The paint glows brightly, throbbing, expanding and then - it stops, as if the light was switched out. Unsure and nervous I step nearer, one step, three steps back, hesitating. My eyes land on the bag and I grab it from where I stand. Five steps and I stand only a few inches from my work, which looks just as it always did. 

As I try to touch it a _one_ forces itself into my view and with a deep breath I take another step.

* * *

I must have closed my eyes, because I have to open them again after I didn't walk into the wall. Which I should have, obviously, but - upon opening my eyes nothing seemed quite so obvious anymore. 

I'm standing in what looks like a corridor, entirely white aside from the windows, farther than I can make out with a lot branch-offs. Everything is bright enough to almost hurt my eyes after the semi darkness of my dank appartment and it looks so pristine that I almost don't dare to take a step forward.   
But there are no numbers dictating my steps and I was curious where I was, so I approach the first window and look out.

Not sure how I get here, but I must be pretty high up considering the skyline of - wait a second, is that over there the London Eye? I take a hasty step back, before I close in on it again, but the image stayed the same. London. How in all hells am I in London? But there it is, right in front of me. Huh.  
I step away again, I have to find someone to answer my questions. The corridor feels even longer when you walk, then run, because I can't see through any of the windows when I run. Arabia, Niagara Falls, nothing but snow. Soldiers with guns, a nurse with a smile, a freaking robot with freaking chainsaw hands. Something that looked awfully like it comes right out of Star Trek. I am insane. Clearly. There is no other explanation. I can't find anyone to ask and I took enough turns to lose my path. No numbers to keep me safe, nothing to hold onto in this strange world full of windows to other places and different worlds and surely, obviously, I only went insane. The realization hit me hard enough to come to a stop, stumble and fall onto the floor.

_Three_

I almost sob in relief that they haven't just abandoned me, that I'm not alone and not insane after all. It is all normal, I am where I have to be in order to - well, whatever they want me to do, but at least I won't have to do it on my own. I stand up again and look around. Still looks the same, one wall full of windows, the other full of other hallways. The third of what? I take a few steps, past the third window and feel my chest contracting. Alright. Third window it is. 

It looks peaceful enough, I decide. At least no roboters in sight, only a green forest - one of those bright, friendly ones, not the creepy you're-going-to-die kind, which is really comforting. It's full of healthy trees and foliage and moss and shrubbery and stuff. I'm not great on nature, living in New York my whole life, but it looks alright, I'm sure. I'll be safe, I will be, I can't lose faith now of all times, so with a deep breath and then another, I open the window and climb through.


End file.
